


It's Better This Way, I Suppose

by Luck_Kazajian



Category: Hades (Video Game 2018)
Genre: Brothers, Death, Elysium, Gen, Peace, What Hades Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 13:08:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19906219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luck_Kazajian/pseuds/Luck_Kazajian
Summary: Thanatos finds Zagreus mortally wounded in Elysium after yet another escape attempt. Although collecting mortal souls is what he does all the time, he's never collected a dying god's soul before. Probably because Zagreus is the only god who's made a habit of dying. And Hades expressly told him not to meddle with Zagreus' affairs. Not that he hadn't already been meddling. So what could it hurt to meddle one more time? After all, this time, Zagreus really looked like he needed it.





	It's Better This Way, I Suppose

There was the customary green flash and Thanatos materialized in Elysium, barb poised on his tongue for Zagreus. 

“You know, if you weren’t so aggravatingly stubborn, I wouldn’t have to--” 

The words died as took in Zagreus’ still form. He was a bloody mess, although that wasn’t unusual. But the spear sticking out of his gut was. Zagreus slumped against the vine-covered wall of Elysium, eyes closed, one hand outflung beside him, the other clutching at the shaft of the spear lodged in his stomach. The Stygian blade lay beside him, glinting blood-red in the grass.

“Zag!” Thanatos rushed over and dropped to a knee beside his half-brother. The damned fool was still breathing. He was a lot more alive than anyone in his condition had a right to be. But it wouldn’t last long. Thanatos knew it with the same cold certainty he knew every death.

“Th-than?” Zagreus’ eyes flickered open and he tried to smile, but it ended up as a grimace. There was a trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth. 

“Good gods, what happened to you?!” Thanatos demanded. 

“Longspear.” Zagreus coughed and winced in pain. 

“Where?” Thanatos demanded, on his feet, scythe at the ready. 

“Dead,” Zagreus said. 

Thanatos looked back down at him. 

“Did you come...for me this time?” Zagreus asked. 

“You know I don’t take the souls of the gods, Zag.” 

“I doubt any other gods have died...as much as me.” 

Thanatos sat down cross-legged beside Zagreus with a sigh. “Far as I know, you’re the only one. If you don’t count the Furies, which you send back to Hades with alarming regularity.”

“They’re not gods,” Zagreus said quietly. He shifted painfully against the wall, biting his lip to stop a groan. 

Thanatos lay his scythe across the grass in front of him and tried to ignore the mewl of pain that escaped Zagreus’ lips. Blood seeped red between Zagreus’ fingers, staining the grass the same color as his blade. 

Thanatos ducked his face and surveyed the tranquil beauty of Elysium through the fringe of his hair. He let the edge of his hood fall forward, halfway obscuring Zagreus’ face. Thanatos didn’t like the way Zagreus’ mismatched eyes didn't focus, the way Zagteus' skin looked too much like the dying ashes of the Asphodel fires. Maybe if he looked elsewhere, he could pretend Zagreus wasn’t dying. 

Oh, Zag would come back. He knew that, but it didn’t make the dying any easier. He was still in pain. Still bleeding. Still rasping his life-blood away with every unsteady breath. 

“You picked a pretty place to die,” Thanatos said. He didn’t know what made him say it. The words sounded stupid as soon as they left his mouth. 

Zagreus grunted and Than pulled his hood back, forcing himself to look at Zag. Zagreus looked back at him with obvious effort. A wry smile twisted his lips, baring too white teeth in his ashen face. “It is...fairer...here than Asphodel or Tartarus, I suppose. It’s closer to the surface, I think,” Zagreus said.

“Don’t fool yourself,” Thanatos laughed humorlessly. “They’re still dead here.” 

“And whose fault is that?” 

Thanatos felt something catch in his throat and couldn’t answer. He was Death, after all. It wasn’t directly his fault that mortals died, but he was the last face they all saw. “You’re right. You don’t want me here...not like this.” No one wanted Death to sit with them while they were dying. Least of all Zagreus. Thanatos had lost count of how many times his stubborn half-brother had died, but he was sure Zagreus didn’t want him here to witness yet another death. At least he had that -- the privacy to die alone. To slip back into Hades with none to witness the humiliation of an immortal meeting his end. Thanatos started to stand up, but Zagreus’ hand was on his arm with surprising strength for a man so close to death. 

“No. Stay.” Those mismatched eyes met his and they were focused again. Sweat ran down Zagreus’ face. “Please,” he rasped.

Thanatos could see the naked plea in Zagreus’ eyes. 

“I don’t want to die alone. Not again. Not --” Zagreus broke off in a hiss, shifting again, hand grasping weakly at the spear haft. His legs slid uselessly against the ground, as if he were trying to sit up straighter. As if movement were going to ease the pain. 

“Still, brother,” Thanatos said, sitting back down and laying a hand on Zagreus’ chest. “I will wait with you.” 

Zagreus relaxed under his touch, body going limp as his eyes shone with relief. He slumped against the wall again, eyes slipping closed. Thanatos leaned back against the wall and pulled Zagreus toward him until his half-brother’s head rested on his shoulder. 

How many times had Zagreus sat in the pits of Hades like this, waiting on death? How many times had he bled out alone, silence his only companion? How many times had he cried out, hoping someone would hear him -- even if it was only an enemy to come finish the job? Thanatos swallowed hard. He’d never known what Zagreus put himself through to get out of Hades. Thanatos assumed it was quick, especially since he never saw Zagreus’ soul. But this...this was worse than most deaths Thanatos attended.

“I can hasten Death, Zagreus,” he murmured. “Do you want me to send you back?” he asked. He could stop the pain, pull Zagreus’ soul from his body and ease his half-brother's trip to Hades.

“No,” Zagreus said, voice catching, eyes still closed. “It’s alright. Like this, I mean.” 

“You’re a terrible liar,” Thanatos chuckled. Only Zagreus would tell him that a spear lodged in his gut was alright.

A smile touched Zagreus’ lips. “Am I?” 

“There isn’t a more genuine soul in all of Hades,” Thanatos said, as he began to weave green light between the fingers of his right hand. 

“You know --” Zagreus broke off in a coughing fit again. It took him longer to get his breath back this time. “This is nice. Being here with you. In Elysium.”

“Except for the dying part,” Thanatos said. 

“Yeah,” Zagreus whispered. “Except for that.” 

The two were silent for a minute. Thanatos continued weaving the green light between his fingers, in and out, forming a near-solid glove over his dark skin. 

“I’m sorry, Than,” Zagreus said, his voice so quiet that Thanatos wouldn’t have caught it if Zagreus wasn’t laying right next to his ear.

“Sorry?” Thanatos asked, genuinely surprised. “For what?” 

“For leaving. But I’ve got to. I’ve got to find out…” Zagreus’ voice gave out and he stiffened beside Thanatos, both hands clawing at his gut, at the spear. He coughed. Thanatos felt the hot splatter of blood against his neck and shoulder. 

“I’m sorry, too, Zagreus,” he whispered and plunged his right hand into Zagreus’ chest.

* * *

He felt something cold slide though him, not altogether unpleasant, and the pain of the spear in his gut faded. Zagreus felt the familiar rip as his soul was pulled from his body, but this time, it was...almost gentle? Like someone was carefully separating body and soul. Someone who knew what he was doing.

Zagreus opened his eyes. He was outside himself now, looking down at his own slumped form. 

It was Thanatos. 

The meddling fool had his right hand buried in Zagreus’ chest. Or, rather, in Body-Zagreus’ chest, as Soul-Zagreus looked on from above. Zagreus felt warm, sleepy almost. And that green light spilling from Than’s hand onto his chest looked so inviting.

No! The fool! If Hades found out what he did -- 

“Don’t fight it, Zag,” Thanatos murmured, as if he could hear Soul-Zagreus’ panicked thoughts. The green light intensified. “Let me help you. Hades doesn’t have to know.” 

Zagreus felt a sense of calm wash over him. A familiar calm. The kind that always infused Thantos’ surroundings (well, when he wasn’t angry with Zagreus, anyway). Then a river of melancholy hit him, Thanatos’ other companion, dredging memories he hadn’t sifted through in years. Memories he’d forgotten. Memories he’d rather forget. Memories he smiled at. He watched flashes of his life as if he were watching a film, or a string of snapshots. He saw Nyx, Megara, Hypnos, Achilles -- everyone dear to him -- even his father. He saw his room back in Hades. He saw himself fighting Skelly and running through Tartarus, Asphodel, and Elysium. 

He saw that spear coming for him again, but this time there was no pain. Only regret and...peace? 

Is this what the mortals felt when Thanatos came for them?

“You should have told me,” Thanatos was speaking to Body-Zagreus, head tilted close to Zagreus’s ear, body curled protectively around him, shielding the green light. Soul-Zagreus wondered if he was supposed to hear this -- if Thanatos even knew he _could_ hear this. “That you die out here like this. I could make it easier for you, you idiot.” 

Soul-Zagreus felt a funny hitch in his chest. Emotion welled up inside him. He felt it like he’d feel the presence of someone standing beside him. Like he felt Thanatos’ hand still inside his body.

 _I thought you didn’t ferry the souls of the gods,_ Zagreus said. But his soul couldn’t talk. Not like this. Not without his body. The only sound in Elysium was the gentle sigh of the perpetual breeze in the soft grass. 

“I may be Death, but I don’t have to be harsh,” Thanatos said, as he gently closed Body-Zagreus’ eyes. 

When had he opened his eyes? Soul-Zagreus blinked. 

“Rest in peace, Zag. I’ll see you out here again soon enough.” 

And then Zagreus’ stomach flip-flopped into his throat as the ground dropped out from under him and he fell forward -- that inevitable free-fall he was never prepared for -- face first into the pool of blood. 

* * *

He came out of the pool quiet and fierce and bloody as always. Hypnos was startled awake as Zagreus’ blood-wet footsteps sizzled closer to him, the fire licking at the Prince’s feet burning away the blood he left on the red carpet. Maybe that was why the carpet was red? 

“Zagreus!” Hypnos said, his list materializing in his hands. “You’re back! How does it feel getting killed by a --” He glanced at the list and his eyes went wide at the name scrawling itself in gold in on his parchment. “By Tha--” 

“Hush, Hypnos.” Zagreus was suddenly right in front of him, hand over Hypnos’ mouth. “Not a word,” he said, rubbing his other hand over the list. Flames crackled at his fingertips and Hypnos watched wide-eyed as Zagreus burned the name off the list. 

Hypnos let out a very undignified squeak.

Zagreus carefully lifted his hand. 

“You know what your father will do to you -- to both of you -- if he finds out?” Hypnos whispered. 

“It was only once, Hypnos,” Zagreus said. “Father doesn’t have to know.” 

“Then what am I supposed to write on the list?” Hypnos asked, wide eyed, even as his parchment began to repair itself, the burn mark disappearing. 

“Longspear,” Zagreus said, smiling with those mismatched eyes. 

“You sure?” Hypnos asked, swallowing hard. 

“Positive.” Zagreus nodded. 

“Ok. Whatever you say, Prince.” Hypnos waved his hand and pulled a blue-feathered quill out of the air, touching it to his tongue before resting it on the parchment. He made a careful note -- Longspear -- in gold ink beside the 98th entry in Zagreus’ long list of deaths. It wasn’t like it was an unusual cause of death. Longspear was already in the list a couple of times. But Hypnos knew if Hades ever found out that he tampered with the list, there’d be Hell to pay. 

Still, it was worth it. If only to see that relieved grin on the Prince’s face. Hades was, perhaps, the only person in his entire household who wasn’t wrapped around the Prince’s finger. Well, except for Tisiphone, but, then again, it was hard to tell when the only words out of her mouth were “murder” and “murderer.” Hypnos wasn’t sure if one of those translated as “friend” or not.

“Thanks, mate,” Zagreus said, tapping the list, pulling Hypnos out of his thoughts. 

“You know we’d walk through Hades for you, Prince,” Hypnos winked. “Both of us.” 

Zagreus smiled. A real smile, a flash of white teeth, that spark of mischief in his eyes. “I know.” 

Yep, worth it. Just for that smile alone. Hypnos returned the smile with a sleepy wave as Zagreus walked away.


End file.
